Forlorn! the very word is like a bell,
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the Fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hillside; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:--do I wake or sleep?
JOHN KEATS.
PERISHED.
CATSKILL MOUNTAIN HOUSE.
Wave after wave of greenness rolling down
From mountain top to base, a whispering sea
Of affluent leaves through which the viewless breeze
Murmurs mysteriously.
And towering up amid the lesser throng,
A giant oak, so desolately grand,
Stretches its gray imploring arms to heaven
In agonized demand.
Smitten by lightning from a summer sky,
Or bearing in its heart a slow decay,
What matter, since inexorable fate
Is pitiless to slay.
Ah, wayward soul, hedged in and clothed about,
Doth not thy life's lost hope lift up its head,
And, dwarfing present joys, proclaim aloud,--
"Look on me, I am dead!"
MARY LOUISE RITTER.
BYRON'S LATEST VERSES.
"_On this day I completed my thirty-sixth year._"
--MISSOLONGHI, JANUARY 23, 1824.
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it has ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone:
The worm, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone.
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